The Story of Han Solo
Duro, was hell, and the Empire will pay. The Central Committee (of Grand Moffs) ordered Duro to be annexed by the Corellia sector. This was part of their plan to make the Duro sector the base of the Imperial War fleet. With a connection to all the major trade routes, high speed and well known hyperspace paths, the Navy is able to send a massive fleet to almost any location within the Core Worlds within hours. The Duro population protested this change, and civil war erupted within the sector. Several of the orbiting cities agreed to secede to the Corellia sector, and made way under their own power. Others sought political channels to appeal the decision, two gave in to complete imperial rule and remain as shipyards and local garrisons for the military. It was the remaining 5 that caused a stir. In order to retain control, the Committee ordered Moff Vorru to take control of the space stations by any means necessary and relocate the population to the Corellian space. He first boarded one of the stations with a massive deployment of Stormtroopers. This Imperial operation largely succeeded due to the peaceful nature of the particular station that was invaded, and few injuries were reported. The more militaristic stations took notice, and began to prepare for similar incursions. When the Stormtroopers came, they were ready for them. Two battalions were killed (1000 stormtroopers) in the first hours of the attack. My squadron was ordered in to disable all the external point defenses of “target Beta”, we did so with minimal damage… the sector was secure, we had hundreds of Star Destroyers in the sector… I did not understand at the time why they would Rebel against us. I would later learn the Moff had spaced the leaders of the of the peaceful station that surrendered, and all of their trained soldiers. When the area was cleared, the next wave of assault shuttles made their way to target Beta, only to be destroyed by ‘space mines’ cleverly deployed by the Duro. The next shuttles and troops would find themselves electrocuted on docking with the station. “Clever I thought” as my imperial colleagues and friends died. Then the order came in for my squadron to destroy the solar power generators and life support systems. They were ready for that too… my squadron was annihilated when the Duro redirected the solar power plates into a focused laser beam and cut us down. I barely escaped with my life. A new wing was assigned to me, and we made way to the life support systems. We fired our torps, and troopers in space suits shot them down, then jumped back into their cover. Not a single one of our payload in the Bombers managed to hit their shields, never mind cause any damage. The Moff was furious, we were ordered back to re-arm. Celebrating, the Duro Commander Nevsky once again re-iterated his desire for Duro to remain a free sector, free from the rule of the Criminal ''Vorru, now guilty of war crimes, for which he was unable to detail. Vorru ordered Sector Group Corellia (24 star destroyers) to open fire on target Beta. Four ISDs opened fire immediately, several delayed, and the ISD ''Red Gauntlet ''refused the order and moved into the firing path. Nevsky declared a full surrender and standown on an open channel in reponse..., while Vorru ordered the ''Red Gauntlet ''Destroyed. I was on Santoro’s ship, ISD ''Thunderer, amongst the ones that delayed. He immediately secured his bridge, and relieved the Stormtrooper guard of their weapons. He outright rejected the order to fire upon the Red Gauntlet, and moved his ship into the line of fire as well, and convinced one of the attacking ISD’s to stand down before committing any further acts of treason against the Empire. While he started on the next ISD commander, the Red Gauntlet’s ''hull broke in half, and all hands were lost. Several of the attacking ISD’s moved in for SAR operations. Vorru took that opportunity to move in and destroy target Beta himself. By this time, loyalists to Vorru had usurped control of the ''Thunderer’s bridge, and the entire command deck was killed. Regaining the upper hand, Vorru ordered Sector Group Corellia to fire on Target Charlie, another one of the Duro spacestation cities simply as an example to others (which worked, as the remaining Duro space cities departed for Corellia). Over a billion Duro died that day across the two space stations. I hate the empire, and they will pay for their crimes. I hate myself, for failing in my mission… if I had been able to disable target Beta, billions of Duro would still be alive today and my squadron and shipmates would not have died in vain.